Conrad-Johnson ET3 Preamplifier

Alan Sircom, Editor of Hi-Fi+, has posted a review of the Conrad-Johnson ET3 preamplifier ($2500) at AVGuide. His conclusions:

If there’s one word that sums up the ET3 it’s ‘sumptuous’. Sound is full-bodied and natural sounding, enveloping the listener in the musical event in the way the c-j preamps always used to. You’d naturally expect this to shine playing smooth jazz combos and string quartets - the sort of music that benefits most from a touch of sonic ‘beautification’. And yet, strangely the album that became the standard bearer for what the ET3 does best was the least likely of all – Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This is considered the worst casualty of the Loudness War, with horribly clipped and compressed ‘peaks’ (it’s actually all peaks). The ET3 doesn’t reconstruct or repair the album and it doesn’t soften those clipped drum beats and power chords. But it does make them more listenable than most systems.

You can read the full review here.